Sunday, February 13, 2011

What does takt mean? Why are you teaching us German? Isn't Lean a Japanese philosophy?

In traditional manufacturing, factories make parts as fast as possible. Output is king, as long as quality is queen. It can be hard to fathom actually slowing down a work cell and being more productive (assuming you’re using less people).

The benefits of levelling production and timing work cells to takt time are enormous. Steady production is easy production!

I try to keep it simple when explaining takt time. Here's a typical conversation:

Me: How fast can you make a part?

Worker:60 seconds

Me:That's the cycle time.

Worker: I know that. I've been doing this for 20 years.

Me: Okay. How fast does the customer want the part?

Worker:Well. . . It's complicated. Some days they want more than other days. And sometimes it's just crazy. Like yesterday. . .

Me:I know what you mean. Yesterday was crazy. But if you take the average demand of the customer and you know how much time you have, you can figure out how many seconds you need per part.

Worker: Sounds a little complicated. You do the math and tell me.

Me:Just divideyourtime bytheirdemand. That's thetakt time. This is how often the customer wants a part. Let's figure it out together.

Takt Time Training Video:

This video takes you to the coffee shop to demonstrate the difference. The author also briefly touches on work balancing to match the takt time. A quick little video to clarify the takt time mystery, perfect for training.

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